Expecting houseful opening: Anand Gandhi

"Ship Of Theseus" won plaudits and prizes in the international film festival film circuit and, after wowing the global audience, it will hit screens in the country July 19

Director Anand Gandhi is hoping a grand opening for his labour of love.

Pic/Sameer Markande

The film was also screened at the Sydney Film Festival and won the best film trophy at the Transilvania International Film Festival.

"I am expecting a full house opening. I am expecting that the cities in which the film is releasing in or being voted to release in, it will have a very good opening there," he told IANS in an interview.

Gandhi is assured the film will find resonance with the masses.

"I don't know what is massy or classy or who is anyone to make these definitions and lines. Who am I to decide that someone living in a certain part of the country will or will not have an interest in the film. I have made a film that I wanted to make. We are proud of it. So far it has found resonance with everyone who has watched it," he said.

Kiran Rao is releasing "Ship of Theseus" in five cities Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata in association with UTV Motion Pictures. Gandhi feels these two big names help the film in a big way.

"It is a huge infrastructure coming on board. It is a huge boost to dynamics of release. The film will find its audience much faster and easily. The film would have found its audience over a decade, but because of Kiran's presence, the film will find its audience faster," he said.

"Ship Of Theseus" explore various aspects of life like identity, beauty and death through three different characters played by Aida El-Kashef, Neeraj Kabi and Sohum Shah, who is also one of the producers of the movie.

Box office numbers do matter to the director.

"It matters to us that audiences go to the theatres and watch the film, so that it can be proved to distributors that this kind of cinema can also be commercially viable. So that we also know that our finance structures can depend on the audience's participation and don't have to only depend on patronage or on crowd-funding and pre-funding," he said.

The director plans to promote the film widely.

"Kiran and I intend to travel to a few cities and engage the audiences - have dialogues and question and answers about the film. Have Google hangouts. Our 'vote for your city' campaign is on and is again demanding direct and immediate participation from the audience," he said.